Ali Harper - The Runaway

She sank into a chair and held her head in her hands.

‘Fag?’ asked Jo, tugging a pack of Marlboro Lights from the front pocket of her dungarees and taking her own seat at the table.

‘Please.’ A hand snaked out, with silver rings on every finger, even her thumbs. ‘Oh, shit, no. I can’t. I’ve given up.’ Her head bowed. ‘Why the fuck anyone …?’

Her voice trailed off, or maybe I just didn’t hear the end of her sentence. I swallowed and took the last seat, the one across from Nikki. I dragged it a little to one side, set it at an angle. Jo opened the file, glanced at me and cleared her throat.

‘So, probably best to start by taking some details. Nikki what?’

‘Cooper-Clarke,’ she said. She put her hands on the table and sat up a little. ‘With an e.’

‘With an e.’ Jo raised an eyebrow as she wrote on the form. ‘And your boyfriend’s missing?’

Nikki nodded, and I heard the sound of tinkling bells. It took me a moment to trace the source – Nikki wore silver rings in her dreads. I scooped my hair back off my face and tied it up with a spare band I had round my wrist.

‘Let’s start with the easy ones,’ said Jo. ‘What’s his name?’

Nikki wiped her eyes on the hem of her top. Questions are good. We’re trained from childhood to want to provide answers. ‘Matt,’ she said. ‘Matt Williams.’

‘That’s great,’ I said, in what I hoped was an encouraging voice. Jo frowned at me. I interlaced my fingers, let my hands rest on the table. It felt weird, like I was praying. I unlaced them and folded my arms across my chest.

Jo kept a stream of easy to answer questions coming – occupation, phone number, height, weight, next of kin, date of birth, star sign – until Nikki’s shoulders had fallen an inch or so and she’d lifted her gaze to meet Jo’s. ‘Pisces,’ she said and tried to smile. ‘Creative genius.’

‘Frustrated alcoholics,’ said Jo as she glanced at me and shifted in her chair.

‘I’m Virgo,’ I said.

‘When,’ said Jo, ignoring me and speaking to Nikki, ‘did you last see him?’

‘Saturday.’

Jo checked the calendar we had tacked to the wall. ‘The eighth?’

Nikki shrugged.

‘What happened?’ I asked. ‘When you last saw him?’

‘Nothing,’ said Nikki, turning to me. Her eyes were almost violet and I wondered whether she wore coloured contact lenses. ‘Nothing,’ she said again, as if that was the most frustrating thing. ‘It was just ordinary. Friday night, we went to The Hyde, played some pool. He stayed at mine. I got up Saturday, went to the Union. That’s the last time I saw him.’

‘You’re a student.’ Jo raised an eyebrow at me.

‘English Lit.,’ she said. ‘Saw the article about you in The Gryphon .’

‘And Matt’s a student too?’

‘MSc.’ The bells tinkled again. ‘Actually, can I have that fag?’ she asked Jo.

‘How was he when you left?’ I asked.

‘Asleep.’

‘And no one’s seen him since?’ asked Jo, as she pushed the pack of Marlboros across the table.

Nikki rested her hand on it but didn’t pick it up. ‘His mates have,’ she said.

‘Go on,’ said Jo, and I didn’t know whether she meant to tell Nikki to take a fag or to carry on speaking.

‘We were supposed to be going to a party on Saturday night – but I didn’t go coz I felt like shit. Ha.’ She forced out what I think was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a shriek. I watched her fingers tremble over the cigarettes. ‘I spoke to him on the phone that afternoon, asked if he fancied coming to mine instead, but he wanted to go. So he went. No one’s seen him since.’

‘He disappeared at the party?’

‘Tuff said he left him there.’

‘Tuff?’

‘His best mate.’

‘Where was this party?’

‘Lincolnshire.’

‘Lincolnshire?’ Geography’s never been my strong point but that struck me as a long way to go for a night out.

Nikki’s hand left the cigarette packet and picked at the tassels on the edge of her sleeves. ‘Sunday afternoon, I went round to Matt’s. Tuff was there. I asked where Matty was and Tuff was like really cagey.’

‘Matty went to the party with Tuff?’ Jo asked as she continued to scribble the information down.

‘Whose party was it?’ I asked.

‘A free party,’ she said.

‘You mean, like a rave?’ Jo asked.

‘Wasn’t that the nineties?’ I said.

Jo pulled a face at me. ‘Whereabouts in Lincolnshire?’

‘Don’t know.’ She picked up the cigarettes and extracted one from the packet. ‘A field somewhere.’

I glanced at Jo and she stuck out her bottom lip. I’ve known her long enough to know what that look means. Jo’s one of the most open-minded people I’ve ever met, except when it comes to men. Truth is, since she caught Andy, her ex, in bed with another woman, she’s got about as much faith in men as she has in the Tory government. Not that I can talk. But I know my failure with the opposite sex is down to me, not them.

Jo put her pen down and pulled her fingers through her hair. A drop more compost fell out. ‘How long you been seeing him?’ she asked.

‘A year. Nearly.’

‘Have you thought,’ – Jo paused and passed Nikki a lighter – ‘have you thought maybe he’s dumped you?’

Nikki lit her cigarette, her eyes half-closed against the smoke. She didn’t speak.

Jo tried again. ‘How would you describe your relationship?’

The questions were getting too complex for Nikki. I saw a fresh batch of tears threaten. ‘He hasn’t dumped me,’ she said.

‘Wonder where Edie is with that tea?’ I made a half-hearted attempt to get up from the table, but Jo glared at me.

‘Why hasn’t he rung anyone?’ Nikki screwed up her nose and exhaled the smoke from her lungs. ‘His phone goes straight to voicemail.’

‘Does he have a job?’ asked Jo.

‘No, but he’s missed his final tutorial. He’s so close to finishing, why disappear the week his dissertation is due to be handed in?’

‘Maybe that’s why he’s disappeared.’ Jo glanced at me again and this time the look was serious. ‘Maybe the pressure was getting to him. Does he suffer from depression, low mood, anxiety?’

Nikki’s violet eyes flashed. ‘He hasn’t killed himself, if that’s what you’re thinking.’

Jo pressed her fingertips down on the edge of the table, making her knuckles crack. ‘Exclusive?’ asked Jo. ‘Or open?’

‘Exclusive,’ said Nikki, without a moment’s hesitation. She pushed the lighter back across the table to Jo. ‘He’s lovely. Ask anyone. He’s—’

‘You can’t think of a single reason why he might have needed to get away?’

‘No. I mean, at least, no, I don’t think so.’

I felt sorry for her, as I watched her trawl her memory banks, because I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to try and find a clue, something you may have missed, a sentence that with hindsight had a different meaning, an action that foreshadowed subsequent events.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said again. ‘I wanted him to stay in with me. He needed a night out.’

‘Have you been to the police?’

‘No.’ She turned to me and I sensed she was glad of the distraction. ‘I didn’t want to get anyone into trouble. That’s why I came to you.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Drugs,’ Jo said, folding her arms across her chest.

Of course. It was only Wednesday. If this guy had gone to a rave on Saturday night it was possible he hadn’t come down yet. We’d probably find him in a field, telling a tree how much he loved everyone.

Nikki rubbed her face with her left hand before speaking. ‘He’s not really a drugs person.’